So let’s get to it, what did we learn over the past week? We were informed by Intel that its computer chips were affected by a bug that makes them vulnerable to hacking. All computers with Intel chips from the past 10 years are affected. Considering that computer chips are basically the backbone and brain behind everything electronic including the entirety of the internet itself, this should be very alarming news. We can’t say that we are surprised, we have said in many past writings that the internet itself will have to adapt to these internal threats. Not to mention the internet security threats that future quantum computing presents. To say that this news out of Intel is alarming, is quite an understatement and it’s why the future of technology will need to be completely and openly discussed by all major stakeholders. This will take a collaborative effort, one by which profits will need to be set aside for the greater good. Whether or not this can be achieved is another thing, but the viability of the internet, the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence comes completely into question now. Intel’s stock price barely fell 5% and why should it, if these things need to be replaced, that means more sales and of course no rebates.

Also out this week the AP reported that the FED projects $80.2 billion in remittance back to the Treasury Dept. Here is a chart of the last decade in remittance. As you can see the FED has paid back billions to its enabler, is it safe to say this is like a drug kingpin and his pushers…maybe that’s too harsh…Anyway the charts show 3 years in a row of declining remittance and one thinks we can just continue to raise rates, can you imagine this levered behemoth and its Dv01 crushing leverage if equities turn and interest rates rise?

In the chaotic world in which we live, we feel that investors tend to over hype the wrong things and under prioritize the right things. For a decade now many investors have finally succumbed to the central bank narrative and the continued and never old mantra of “buying the dip.” The truth has become so self-fulfilling, that there isn’t even a “dip” to buy. Many pundits have attacked these global markets, have doubted the global markets and even more so have doubted the wherewithal of this rally. See here is the thing about the human psyche, we humans tends to be risk averse, and we tend to question everything, up until the very end. The funny thing about time, though, as it moves forward, it seems to leave in its wake, many investors dismayed, many in disbelief. Many will say, I know I should have been long, I knew this market was going up, I didn’t know exactly why it was going up, but it just keeps going. We have a feeling that many doubters, those patient risk averse, 60/40 allocating types have tossed in the doubting towel, especially over the last 2 years. Let’s just say the enticement has become too much, despite the fundamentals, despite all that is wrong with every value metric out there, who cares, just buy it! Talk to your friends, talk to Joe Blow on the street, nobody and I mean nobody thinks the markets can fall anymore. They say that it seems expensive, that it should fall, but it doesn’t, can you blame them? We don’t! It’s typical of the human psyche to succumb to unwavering pressures. In fact nobody we speak with calls the equity markets a bubble anymore, which means it’s just being accepted for what it has become, that is the defacto money market for the top 10%. We get it, but one thing we don’t is why everyone we talk to calls Bitcoin a bubble, are they joking, a mere $100bln market cap and that’s a bubble? It pales in comparison to the kind of rehypothecated capital that exists out there. So don’t fall for it, let’s just end the bubble talk any further, for any market in fact, Bitcoin, SP500, Real Estate, forget it, Bubbles no more. Fundamentals no more!